LitNet Top 100 Books Revisited

[Desolation]

We're going to be doing a revision of the current Top 100 Books list, in order to reflect changing tastes and membership. Also, because lists are fun.

So, here's how it will go. Post a list of your 10 favorite books (or, if necessary, the 10 books you think are most deserving of being on the list), in order of preference. Order is very important, as I will be using a weighted point system to compile the final list. The book that you rank as #1 will receive 10 points, and the book you rank at #10 will receive 1 point, and so on and so forth.

To give everyone plenty of time, I'm going to leave voting open until around mid/late December (after finals end, basically). If at any point you would like to edit your ballot, simply post a new one with a note to make your edit clear, and I will discard the previous ballot.

A user should have at least 50 posts to submit choices. I don't want new members to feel excluded, but this arrangement ensures that the list remains a community project.

So, have fun and be respectful of other members' choices (though, as always, discussion and debate, if it comes up, is encouraged). Thank you!

[Desolation]

My ballot -

1. Ulysses by James Joyce
2. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
3. The Recognitions by William Gaddis
4. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
5. Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnameable by Samuel Beckett (Just a note here – if they are usually published in a single book, I’m going to count votes for collections of novels, short stories, and poems such as this)
6. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
7. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
8. Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine
9. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
10. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

[Darcy88]

1. Don Quixote
2. One Hundred Years of Solitude
3. Heart of Darkness
4. Blood Meridian
5. Tropic of Cancer
6. The Iliad
7. The Plague
8. The Idiot
9. Wuthering Heights
10. Lady Chatterly's Lover

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

1. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
2. The Bible by ANONYMOUS
3. Paradise Lost by Milton
4.The Comedia by Dante
5. The Aeneid by Virgil
6. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
7. The Odyessey by Homer
8. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
9. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
10. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

[Anton Hermes]

(Just a note here – if they are usually published in a single book, I’m going to count votes for collections of novels, short stories, and poems such as this)

I like your picks. But I've never seen A la Recherche du Temps Perdu published as a single book.

[Lykren]

Ulysses
The Tale of Genji
Anna Karenina
The Brothers Karamazov
Moby Dick
Pride and Prejudice
Hamlet
The Stranger
Paradise Lost
Middlemarch

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Darcy! Good to see ya!

Also, desolation, you may want to add the provision that one needs to have at least 50 votes before they can submit choices.

[Desolation]

I like your picks. But I've never seen A la Recherche du Temps Perdu published as a single book.

That's a fair point...And that would be one hell of a monstrous book...But it is generally considered to be one novel cut into several volumes.

I figure series, like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and the like, should be counted as one as well.

Also, desolation, you may want to add the provision that one needs to have at least 50 votes before they can submit choices.

Good idea.

[Calidore]

I figure series, like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and the like, should be counted as one as well.

LOTR was written as one novel; the publisher split it up. Harry Potter was written as individual novels of varying quality. Also, in general it seems like you'll be opening a can of worms if you allow entire series as single entries.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Yeah, especially when you're talking about a series with 10-15+ books (not that I think many of those would be nominated, but you never know). Maybe the criteria should be if it's intended to be one work, such as Search of Lost Time and LOTR?

[Anton Hermes]

That's a fair point...And that would be one hell of a monstrous book...But it is generally considered to be one novel cut into several volumes.

Very much so. Like a lot of Lawrence Durrell's novels, they don't work well without the other books in the series. But it's a real poser how to deal with them for lists like these (in which I never seem able to participate).

[Desolation]

I don't want to split too many hairs as far as what voters can and can't nominate as a single entry. I leave it mostly to each voter's discretion.

(Besides, it really would be tidier to count a vote for the entire Harry Potter series than for each of the separate novels.)

[stlukesguild]

1. Comedia- Dante Alighieri
2. The Bible- anon.
3. The Oresteia- Aeschylus
4. Hamlet- William Shakespeare
5. Don Quixote- Cervantes
6. Shahnameh- Ferdowsi
7. The Arabian Nights- anon.
8. Les Fleurs du mal- Charles Baudelaire
9. Labyrinths- J.L. Borges
10. King Lear- William Shakespeare

[Clopin]

1. The bible - JESUS
2. The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoyevsky
3. Comedia - Dante
4. Confessions - Rousseau
5. War and Peace - Tolstoy
6. Crime and Punishment - Dostoyevsky
7. Les Miserables - Hugo
8. Don Quixote - Cervantes
9. Complete works of Shakespeare (does this count?) - Shakespeare
10. In Search of Lost Time - Proust

Not really in any order.

[Desolation]

9. Complete works of Shakespeare (does this count?)

I'll take it. But, it should be noted that, as with any anthology where the individual works contained therein are more well-known, it's less likely to make the final list than one of Shakespeare's play may be.